Andrea Dietrich grew up in Iowa and now resides in Utah with a spouse and two cats. She has two grown children and three grandchildren. Having graduated BYU with a Spanish major/ESL minor, she has spent most of her adult life teaching. It wasn't until 2000 that she began writing in earnest and discovering her "niche" as a writer of lyrical poetry. The internet opened up a new world for her, and she has spent nearly a decade now participating in poetry clubs, acting as a judge of poetry contests for various magazines and for the website Shadow Poetry, and also, entering poetry contests herself.
Ms. Dietrich has won numerous awards, as well as the title Poet of the Year 2008, from the Yahoo group, Poetry For Thought. In addition, she has won prizes from the magazines Lucidity, Bell's Letters, Art with Words, Poets at Work and SP Quill, the magazine for which she wrote grammar and poetry articles as well as movie reviews and for which she acted as poetry editor for the head editor Marie Summers for six years. Many of her poems have appeared in Shadows Ink, a yearly published series of chapbooks of award winning poetry as well as in numerous other anthologies. Her short stories appeared in many issues of SP Quill and much of her poetry is published in eight chapbooks (the most recent one soon to be published is called Prosies), which can be purchased at Shadowpoetry.com.